App Smart Extra: More Music-Teaching Apps

This week’s App Smart column was about simple music apps that are intended to help interest kids in music.

But there’re as many music-centric apps as you can imagine on Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms, and not all of them are directly about learning to play music, or identify or understand musical instruments.

For example, one way to get an older child interested in music may be to introduce them to the $10 Animoog app on iOS devices. It’s the official app for the celebrated Moog analog synthesizers that kicked off electronic music in the 1960s. It’s very sophisticated, with all sorts of controls over sound envelopes and other obscure-sounding parameters. But there are many presets and the incredible ear-bending sounds it can create, reminiscent of many a sci-fi sound track, will be sure to interest youngsters. A more advanced version for the iPad is $30.